Sit together in yellow silence; Berkeley, CA, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
[Cross-posted at HijabMan.com.]
3beautifulthings:
1. SORRY. Recently, I learned a humbling — and very important — lesson from a friend: to apologize for things said or acts committed in anger, even if the anger was justified. There is not much to add to this, but I will […]

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Post office errands, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
3 Beautiful Things, the downtown Berkeley post office edition
I. One morning, I was at the post office and somehow got into a conversation about languages with the woman at the counter who was helping me with my express-mail packages. And she told me that her now-29years-old grandson, almost 30, […]

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Purple at Casa420, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
Walking out of work the other evening, I crossed paths yet again with everyone’s favorite security guard, he of the 86,400 seconds in a day.
As I strode past, he called out after me, “Purple is in!”
I turned back, confused. “Oh?”
“Yeah! Didn’t you know that? Purple is the color of […]

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Serenity at Santa Cruz (ii), originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
Some friends and I are going to be in Santa Cruz this Sunday, hanging out in the sunshine (and there damn well had better be sunshine, or I shall be pissed). I sent out a reminder email a few days ago with the following Highly Important Questions:

WHO’S […]

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The better to stab you with, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
My colleague ducks his head through the doorway this evening on his way out of work and calls out, “Bye, Jasmin!”
“You call me that again, and we are not going to be friends anymore,” I mutter sourly, without turning my eyes away from […]

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Tangerines!, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
Hi, is this thing still on?
I know. It’s been a long while.
Owl has tried shaming me with harassment tactics, and H (”Yasmin Without an E”) has probably resignedly reverted to reading about immunoglobulins, and Baji’s still holding out hope, and Hashim has given up altogether.
I like when I beat […]

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Carefree at the fake beach in Emeryville, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
and i wonder if everything i do
i do instead
of something i want to do more
the question fills my head
i know that there’s no grand plan here
this is just the way it goes
and when everything else seems unclear
i guess at least i know
i do it for […]

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Sunshine-y orange, to cheer me up on rainy days like today, by yaznotjaz
Sometimes when I am bored or tired or stressed, I hit “compose” on a new email window and type nonsense. Like this one at work today:
This is one example of the ways in which we can collaborate on projects based around shared issues […]

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Let’s go home, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
By Tuesday or so, I had already realized this week needed to be over. My GMail status:
Dear God: Please make it be Saturday already, because this week kind of sucks. Thank you.
Love, Yasminay
The responses were hilarious:
Anjum, channeling God:
Dear Yasminay,
*sigh*, I get this request every week from you.
[…]

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A chessboard awaits potential players in an Oakland park, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
The Lovely L Lady asked me this evening, “So, what do you do during this meditation?”
“Well. I just close my eyes and concentrate on dua [supplications] and dhikr and any other prayers I have memorized.”
“Oh, good,” she said in mock relief. “I thought […]

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Sunshine seating at the New Tandoori Cafe, San Jose, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
I had dinner tonight with two women I met a couple of months ago at a work-related event. They somehow took a liking to me, and expressed interest in meeting up sometime. Sure, I said, thinking, New friends! After some back and forth, […]

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Hanging out at the art store, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
It’s never a good idea to blog about work, but I would just like to say: It’s not a part of my job description to waste time answering idiotic questions like, “What should I label this box? ‘Scratch paper’? Or ‘Scrap paper’?”
I am a very important […]

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Pencils so pretty, it makes you want to eat them, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.
My (3 or more) Beautiful Things posts always contain snippets from a single given day of the week, but, in this case, I haven’t written in a while, so the following is a compilation of things from the past couple of weeks:
one. […]

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Rainbow skirt, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz
In response to an email I sent earlier today, a colleague replied simply,
Yasmine,
You’re so good with detail.
In a few simple words, he managed to cheer me up and, for now, make it all okay: The long hours; the nonstop conference calls, meetings, and events that take up nearly all […]

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Originally uploaded by yaznotjaz
I took the above photo in mid-January and uploaded it to flickr in mid-February. The title:
Somehow I trick myself into believing that if I go around wearing floaty summer dresses, winter will end all the sooner.
The caption:
This day’s wardrobe consisted of the following: Flared jeans + floaty summer dress + […]

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